A Down and Dirty Christmas: Spend Christmas on the Naughty List

by Valente, Lili

  His other hand cups my cheek. “No, I just love you, dummy.”

  “Don’t call me a dummy,” I whisper, too overwhelmed to say anything else.

  “How about I call you mine, instead?” The hope in his eyes shoots an arrow straight into my heart. “Would you at least think about that for me? Because I honestly don’t see how I’m going to make it much longer without you.”

  My heart overflows and my eyes follow, sending fresh tears streaming through my lashes. “Shit, Garrett. Now I’m going to ugly cry. You’re making me ugly cry.”

  “You’re beautiful. You’re always beautiful to me.” He kisses my forehead and then my cheek, and pretty soon his lips find mine and we end up making out in the car for a long, long time.

  Probably at least ten minutes too long for a small town filled with people who are way nosier than your average city-dweller. The knock on the window really shouldn’t come as a shock, but it does.

  I’m so surprised that I yip and jump in my seat, knocking my nose into Garrett’s with enough force that pain blossoms across the bridge.

  “Ouch.” I laugh nervously as I glance over my shoulder to see Dot waving at me through the window with a big smile on her face.

  “Did you see it?” she shouts as she motions toward the community center, clearly overestimating the soundproofness of my car windows. “It’s Bo’s! I can’t believe I forgot to tell you the other day, darlin’. And who is this? Your boyfriend? Why didn’t you tell me you had a boyfriend with you? I wouldn’t have felt nearly as terrible about you running off by yourself on Christmas Eve.”

  I lift a hand, but before I can open the door or get a word in edgewise, Dot barrels on with a big grin and a bigger wave for Garrett.

  “So good to meet you, hon!” She laughs as her cheeks flush pink. “Our Dakota always was the prettiest girl in town. Not surprised she’s got such a handsome man-panion.”

  “Man-panion, I like it,” Garrett says, before adding in a voice for my ears only, “Assuming I don’t have to tell Dot that we’re just old friends.”

  “We’re never going to be just friends, old or otherwise,” I murmur as I turn his way. “I want to jump your bones too much. And I like you. A lot. And not in a just-friendly kind of way.”

  He holds my gaze for a beat before he smiles. “Good. I’ll take that, and I’ll keep telling you I love you until you tell me to stop.” He kisses my cheek before stepping out of the car and circling around to introduce himself to Dot, leaving me with a goofy grin on my face I can’t hide.

  So I don’t even try.

  We spend the rest of the day cruising around town, seeing all the good things Garrett has done for people who so desperately needed his help, and by the end of the day, I feel less worried than I have in a long time.

  I thought I’d put Harry and its troubles behind me a long time ago, but as Garrett and I sit down to dinner at the bed and breakfast, surrounded by couples who can afford a meal out together for the first time in years, I finally feel truly at peace with the past. These people are my people, and they always will be, no matter how far I run or how many miles stretch out between us. I told myself I was okay with Harry circling the drain, but that was only because I couldn’t see how it could ever get better.

  But Garrett did.

  And I love him for it, though I don’t tell him so that night.

  Or the next. Or even on New Year’s Eve, when he surprises me with a romantic evening spent christening the hotel’s newly completed movie theater with a midnight showing of The Wizard of Oz, my absolute favorite movie of all time.

  I don’t tell him until much later, after spring has sprung and he’s settled into his new apartment in D.C., when I’m absolutely sure that nothing can shake us. And I don’t say “yes” until the following December twenty-third, at a simple ceremony attended by friends who are as close as family, in the penthouse where we spent the hottest Christmas Eve in memory.

  As I promise to love and cherish him until death do us part, I can’t help thinking death will have to work pretty hard to destroy this perfect thing we’ve forged.

  “Happy?” Garrett hugs me close as we separate from our first kiss as man and wife and our friends break into applause.

  “The happiest,” I confirm, taking his hand to make the rounds among our guests, thanking everyone for coming before inviting them into the kitchen for cake.

  “Are you sure you can’t stay?” Garrett asks his friend Tennyson, who seems determined to leave the party early. “I can get you a room. We’re not full until tomorrow night.”

  “Thank you, but I have to run,” Ten says, his blue eyes brighter than I remember them. “I’ve got to work tomorrow.”

  “You look happier about work than I usually am,” I say with a laugh. “And I love my job.”

  “I love mine, too,” Ten says, his gaze lifting guiltily to the ceiling. “But I have other business tomorrow night.”

  “Personal business?” Garrett asks at the same time I ask, “Girl business?”

  We both laugh and Ten, who is usually the picture of tall, dark, and serious, smiles as he says, “Maybe. I hope so anyway. We’ll see if the Fates are with me.”

  “I think they will be.” I hold Garrett’s hand a little tighter. “Christmas is a good time to fall in love, I hear.”

  Garrett squeezes my fingers. “I hear that, too. Good luck, man. I highly recommend love. It’s made me ridiculously happy.”

  Ten’s smile widens. “It has. And I’m happy for you. No one deserves it more than you and your lovely bride.”

  Garrett glances my way, his eyes softening with the love I still can’t believe belongs to me every bit as much as I belong to him.

  But it does, and I do, a fact he reminds me of late into our wedding night and every night after.

  The End

  SNOWED IN WITH THE BOSS

  A Master Me Novella

  By Lili Valente

  Chapter One

  Dear Jane,

  If you’re reading this, it means you’ve decided to accept my offer to provide you with a proper education in all things Dominant and submissive.

  I have to confess, I’m surprised, Singleton. I didn’t think you had it in you.

  But I didn’t think you would engage in an online flirtation with an alleged BDSM expert via our company email server, either, let alone make a date to meet up in real life with a man you haven’t bothered to do a background check on.

  You’re full of surprises this week, aren’t you?

  I’m beginning to think you need a keeper, Jane, someone to keep that pretty ass of yours out of trouble.

  Yes, beautiful, I mentioned your ass. And if you’re still in my office by the time I get back, I’m going to do a lot more than mention it.

  I meant what I said: as of seven o’clock tonight you are no longer my employee. You’re fired, and will remain so until eight o’clock on the morning of January fifth, when the rest of the staff returns to work. At that time, no matter what does or doesn’t happen tonight, your job will be reinstated—provided you promise to keep your personal and professional lives separate moving forward.

  This is your last chance, Jane…

  If you’ve decided you’re not ready for this kind of education, or for me to be the one to teach you, go into the break room and close the door. I’ll leave blankets outside in the hall for you to collect at your convenience. With the storm raging and the subways shut down, neither of us is going anywhere until morning, but that doesn’t mean we have to spend the night together. You can have the break room, I can sleep on the couch in my office, and we’ll wake up tomorrow and pretend this offer was never on the table.

  I can even help you find another sane, safe, experienced

  Dominant…if that’s what you want.

  But as a friend, and someone who cares about your safety, I strongly encourage you to cut ties with Brock Damon. He’s not only a convicted sex offender—which you would have known if you’d done due
diligence—but a generally shit person, to boot. He’s rough with his submissives in a way that has nothing to do with love, power exchange, or pleasure. And that’s just what I’ve seen in the clubs we both frequent. I can only imagine what a monster he must be in private.

  And I don’t want anything monstrous to happen to you, Jane. You’re too good, and too sweet, to have your first experience in the lifestyle be with a man like that.

  You’re probably too sweet to play well in this world at all—you’re certainly too stubborn—but since you seem determined to give it a go, I can at least make sure you receive a proper introduction to what it means to kneel at a master’s feet.

  But I warn you, if you decide to stay and let me be your teacher, you should be aware of three very important things.

  I will expect your obedience. You will do what I say, when I say it, or you’ll be punished. You want an education in the art of submission, and I intend to give it to you. I will be fair and generous, but I won’t always be kind.

  “No” and “Stop” hold no meaning for me in situations like these. Once your education begins, these words will be rendered useless. If you’re in pain—physical, mental, or emotional—or unable to obey the commands you’ve been given, you will communicate that to me by using your safe word: blueberry muffin. All other calls for me to stop or otherwise modify my actions will be ignored.

  If you stay here, with me, I intend to have all of you. You will be bared to me, naked in every sense of the word.

  First I will strip you of your clothes, then I will strip you of your defenses. I won’t fuck you unless you beg me for it—and I mean beg, Jane, ugly, shameless, desperate, brazen begging—but I will put my hands all over you. Every part of your beautiful body will be my playground, not a single, delectable inch off-limits.

  Are you ready for that, sweetness? Ready to be possessed?

  If so, get on your knees, beautiful. The game is about to begin.

  Tonight you’re mine,

  Ten

  Chapter Two

  Jane

  The letter falls from my shaking fingers, fluttering to the floor as my pulse speeds so fast the room begins to spin.

  This can’t be real.

  It has to be some sort of joke. A prank. April’s Fool Day on Christmas Eve.

  Mr. Tennyson—Ten to his employees and friends—has a bone dry sense of humor, but I usually get his jokes right away.

  But my gut is screaming that this isn’t a joke.

  Ten has never said anything to me that wasn’t strictly aboveboard. He’s a gentleman in every sense of the word and has impeccable manners. He’s the kind of man who holds the elevator doors until the last person is out of the car and treats his entire staff to happy-hour drinks once a week. He listens when people talk, respects the professionals who work for him, dispenses criticism with fairness and compassion, and treats male and female employees with an equality that’s rare in the tech sector.

  In my entire four years as his executive assistant, he has never once let his gaze drift below my neckline, let alone called me beautiful or talked about my ass or…

  Or about…

  “About fucking you, Jane,” I whisper in the too-still air of Ten’s office.

  The only answer is a flicker from the candles I lit when the power went out nearly an hour ago. The candles that may soon be illuminating my bare skin as Ten strips me of my clothes and my defenses, assuming I’m brave enough to stay put.

  My hands fly to my flushed cheeks, my fingers cold against the burning skin. My knees go weak, and my entire body begins to tremble as the reality that Ten is serious sets in. Ten—my boss, my friend, and the most magnetic man I’ve ever met—wants me on my knees, ready to learn the art of submission.

  From him.

  From a man I know, a man who’s laughed at my jokes, moaned in appreciation for the homemade baked goods I bring into the office on Mondays, and sat next to me at the funeral when one of our interns was killed in a traffic accident.

  He held my hand that day while I cried. He’d cried, too.

  I’ve seen this man cry. I’ve seen him think and feel and get that laughably glazed look in his eyes when Donald’s sales projection presentation takes up forty minutes of the hour-long morning meeting. I’ve seen him rage at the latest cyber attack on our system, ponder spreadsheets with the squinty expression he gets when he’s thinking, and smirk at me over the rim of his margarita when I leave happy hour early to go on my latest disastrous date.

  And it’s clear that Ten is always certain I’m headed for disaster, no matter how hard I’ve tried to find the diamond buried in the dung pile of losers clogging the Internet dating sites.

  Losers like Brock Damon, who is apparently a sex offender, if Ten’s letter is to be believed.

  And of course it is.

  Ten always does his research. He would never meet a stranger for drinks, let alone Dominance and submission training, without doing a thorough background check. Unlike me, naïve, small-town-girl Jane Singleton, who even after four years of living in New York City is still surprised when men lie to me about what they do for a living, or post twenty-year-old photos online and show up to our meeting paunchy, balding, and angry that I’m not pleasantly surprised to have been tricked into going on a date with someone old enough to be my father.

  But this is a new level of cluelessness, even for me.

  I can’t believe I didn’t do so much as a Google search on the Dom I’ve been flirting with for the past few weeks. And I really can’t believe that I thought using my private email address would be enough to keep my personal-email-sent-during-work-hours indiscretion under the radar. Intrepid Industries is one of the world’s leading cyber security firms, with filters in place guaranteed to kick messages like the ones I was sending straight to the top of the “suspicious activity” pile Ten reviews each day.

  But maybe that’s what you wanted, Jane…

  Maybe subconsciously you wanted him to figure out what you were up to and make you an offer like the one he’s making tonight.

  I shake my head at the thought as I pace the carpet in front of Ten’s desk, my palms sweating and my heart slamming against my ribs.

  I didn’t know Ten was into things like this.

  Did I?

  But maybe I did. Maybe deep down I’ve known why I shiver every time Ten uses his “let’s get serious” voice to call a meeting to order, and why I can’t break eye contact with him until I’m certain he’s finished with me. Why there are times when even an innocent, friendly touch from my boss is enough to make my pulse race because no one has ever touched me like that, with a confidence that borders on possession.

  Ten’s confidence in his ability to command a woman’s pleasure is present in his every word, his every gesture, and I would be lying if I said that—or anything else about the man—has escaped my attention.

  I pay very close attention to Mr. Tennyson, and I’ve never been more jealous of anyone than I was of his date to the office holiday party two years ago. Watching him escort Veronica around the room with his big hand at the small of her back made my entire being ache with longing. Before that night, I’d never seen Ten with a woman, though I’d known he was in a serious relationship at the time. But seeing it in-person had been an entirely different experience, one that left me no choice but to admit that I have a little thing for my boss.

  Okay, fine, a big thing. A thing so intense that I’d burned to be the woman on his arm that night, and now it is flat out impossible to force my feet to move toward the door.

  The logical part of me insists that it’s insane to put my job and my future at risk. I have a few months of expenses saved up, but not enough to last if I have trouble finding another position. And I love working at Intrepid. I love working with Ten, the only boss I’ve ever had who makes me feel valuable, important, and safe to speak my mind when the moment calls for it.

  I don’t want to ruin a good thing, but I also don’t want to live the rest
of my life without knowing what it’s like to feel Ten’s hands on me, his lips on my mine…and maybe more, assuming I’m brave enough to beg for it.

  To beg him to take me, to make me his. At least for tonight.

  The thought summons a wave of heat that sweeps across my skin, melting the last of my resistance. Forcing the fearful voices to the back of my mind, I sink to the floor, kneeling and sitting back on my sensible heels. I interlace my shaking fingers in my lap and bow my head, fighting to stop trembling before the footsteps on the thick carpet in the hall outside reach the office door.

  He’s almost here.

  God, he’s almost here, and my heart is pounding and my throat is tight and I’m wishing I’d worn something sexier to work today and praying I’m not wearing granny panties—I can’t remember what I snagged as I pawed through my lingerie drawer this morning.

  Then the door opens and my mind clears in a rush.

  Ten is here, and suddenly I can’t think of anything but him.

  Chapter Three

  Ten

  Every once in a great while, life throws something unexpectedly beautiful in your path. An unforeseen gift, a treasure so heartbreakingly lovely and finely made that you can’t help but fall in love with it—with her—even though she never was and never will be meant for you.